See success with a four-stage customer migration plan

Leveraging all available customer touchpoints to drive relevant brand interaction is the future of marketing. But different lay­ers of process — including data capture, analytic scoring, database design and technical infrastructure — create dependencies which can cause even the most seasoned multichannel marketers to rethink their chosen occupation. A four-stage customer migration plan helps ensure that those “big ideas” become reality.

First, determine where you want your customers to go – your migration goals. Who are you talking to, how do you want them to respond, and what value does that response have? Then iden­tify your marketing assets — in products and services; rewards and incentives; as well as customer touch points.

Your success depends on tying each marketing asset to a quan­tifiable change in customer behavior, and then mapping the op­erational dependencies required to fully leverage that asset. For instance, if a monthly bill is going to influence customers, then plan what piece of the bill will be customized, what data and technical applications will be used, and what customer behaviors are expected to occur as a result of the customization.

Next, the right subcategories of customer data create a personalized customer experience in multichannel marketing. Data taxonomy planning recognizes that higher, middle and lower classes of customer profile data are needed by marketers wanting to drive segment-specific programs. For example, it is one thing to know whether a customer travels for business or for pleasure, but quite another to know that a customer is traveling for pleasure with his family at a branded resort. So, define the hierarchy of data you need help capturing to stay relevant.

Then, motivate customers to move closer to your market­ing objectives using different carrots to influence behavior. And change these benefits as your customers begin to interact with your brand. This can be done using the “4 Ps” of value exchange: Paid, promissory, participative and provided. Paid exchanges simply give a customer rewards or points; promis­sory exchanges offer tailored products and services in exchange for data; participative approaches involve the customer in the ideation process; and provided exchanges are mutual and imme­diate “give for get,” e.g. instant value-added personalization.

Finally, create your touch point roadmap, which dia­grams and which customer touchpoints to use, where carrots are offered, and what behaviors are desired as a result. It's a relationship matu­ration strategy outlining how customers will be engaged, where technology and ana­lytic transformation accept or provide key content, and how personalization will drive customers from one touchpoint to the next to deepen commercial relationships.

The customer migration plan is a customer engagement strategy grounded in the realities of data-driven marketing. If marketers partner with technical teams to articulate program needs up front, delays will be fewer, frustrations more sparse, and programs more powerful.